Roma Loquitur...

... And the news is good. The Vatican's Congregation for Divine Worship (CDF) has granted formal approval of proposed changes to the English translation of the central prayers of the mass. The CDF officially informed the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) in a letter of July 23 of it's official recognitio of these changes, which have been in the works for some time now. See the item in yesterday's Catholic World News (CWN) - excerpted below.

The complete new translation of the Roman Missal is still a ways off. The entire process is expected to take until 2010, so these changes will not be implemented immediately, but the Vatican has directed the bishops to begin "pastoral preparation" for the changes in the meantime. From the CWN story, here's a summary of the changes:

At the Consecration, the priest will refer to Christ's blood which is "poured out for you and for many"-- an accurate translation of pro multis-- rather than "for all" in the current translation.

In the Nicene Creed the opening word, Credo, will be correctly translated as "I believe" rather than "we believe."

When the priest says, "The Lord be with you," the faithful respond, "And with your spirit," rather than simply, "And also with you."

In the Eucharistic prayer, references to the Church will use the pronouns "she" and "her" rather than "it."

In the Agnus Dei, the text cites the "Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world," rather than using the singular word "sin."

In the preferred form of the penitential rite, the faithful will acknowledge that they have sinned "through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault."

There should be a great deal of discussion of this in the coming days and weeks. There has already in the run up to this announcement. For those of us who were hoping for a truer translation of the Latin, rather than the more "interpretive" current version, this is encouraging. I look forward to further developments.